Ethnic Chinese around world rally to support Olympics

NEW YORK, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Ethnic Chinese around the world took to streets this weekend to voice their support for the Beijing Olympics and condemnation of some Western media's distorted coverage of China.

In Atlanta, where the CNN's headquarters and the Centennial Olympic Park are located, some 600 ethnic Chinese residing or studying in the U.S. state of Georgia and nearby regions gathered at the above two sites, waving the Chinese national flags and holding up banners supporting the Beijing Olympics and condemning the distorted coverage of China by some Western media.

The demonstrators, mostly professionals and students from southeastern United States, were reacting to CNN commentator Jack Cafferty's derogatory remarks on China made on April 9, when he called the Chinese "the same goons and thugs they've been for the last 50 years."

They sang China's national anthem and chanted slogans such as "CNN Liar, Cafferty Fire" and "No Politicization of Olympics."

A plane circled overhead, carrying a banner that read: "Go Olympics! CNN Stop Bashing Chinese!!!"

"We want to let our voices be heard ... that we Chinese people are standing up to oppose anyone who wants to slander China with such racial remarks," Wu Peng, a Chinese man working for a financial firm in Atlanta, told Xinhua by telephone.

Also on Saturday, about 500 Chinese students and scholars from Yale University and Chinese residents living in nearby areas rallied in support of the forthcoming Beijing Olympics.

Waving the Chinese and U.S. national flags as well as the flags of the Beijing Olympic Games, demonstrators chanted slogans like "Olympics! Not Olympolitics", "Yes to Human Rights, No to Media Distortion" and "Go China! Go Olympics".

They marched in the streets and gave artistic performances at the New Haven Green, a public park in downtown New Haven, Connecticut, next to Yale's Old Campus buildings.

In San Francisco, some 5,000 people from the Chinese community participated in the two-hour mass rally in front of the CNN's local office building, calling for the firing of Cafferty and a sincere apology by the CNN to ethnic Chinese people all over the world.

Holding U.S. and Chinese flags and banners and condemning CNN commentator's racist remarks and the TV network's biased Tibet coverage, the demonstrators chanted slogans like "CNN liar, Cafferty fire," and marched along a stretch of a downtown street after the rally.

In Canada's downtown Vancouver, about 5,000 Chinese Canadians gathered Saturday to voice their support for the Beijing Olympics and denounce CNN's biased coverage of the riots in Tibet.

With the theme of "Condemning the Separatist Violence, Denouncing the Media Bias, and Supporting the 2008 Olympics," the event started with a peaceful rally at the Sun Yat Sen Square in the Chinatown in Vancouver, Canada's gateway to the Pacific, following similar events that took place in such Canadian major cities as Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Edmonton, which are homes to large Chinese communities.

In the Swedish capital of Stockholm, thousands of ethnic Chinese residing or studying in this European country took to the streets on Saturday afternoon to condemn the Tibetan separatists' attempt to sabotage the Olympic Games.

They waved China's national flags, held banners supporting the Beijing Olympics and chanted such slogans as "Tibet, Part of China Forever," "Beijing Welcomes You" and "No Distorted Report."

Setting out at the Mynttorget Square, the protestors marched through the downtown areas before arriving at the Sergelstorg Square. There some demonstrators delivered speeches, condemning attempts to sabotage the Olympic torch relay and some Western media's biased reports on China.

According to a leading organizer of the event, the gathering marks the biggest of its kind by ethnic Chinese in Sweden.

In New Zealand's Auckland, thousands of ethnic Chinese, despite heavy rainfall, Saturday took to streets, waving China's national flags, holding banners and chanting such slogans as "No distorted report," "No Politicization of Olympics" and "Tibet of China, Olympics of the World."

All in red, the color of China's national flag, or wearing T-shirts with such words as "Support Beijing Olympics," they also sung China's national anthem to express their love for China and the Olympics.

Some of them delivered speeches at the gathering, condemning attempts to sabotage the Olympic torch relay and to blacken China.